Origins and early years On 27 November 1903, Wilhelm Hauschild wrote a letter – signed by 180 of his fellow workers – to his employer, the
Friedrich Bayer and Co., seeking the company's support in starting a sports club. The company agreed to support the initiative, and on 1 July 1904
Turn- und Spielverein Bayer 04 Leverkusen was founded as a
works team.
SV Bayer 04 Leverkusen took with them the club's traditional colours of red and black, with the gymnasts adopting blue and yellow after a while. Until 1930, Wiesdorf was the hometown of Bayer 04, and Leverkusen was merely the district where the factories and workers' housing were located. In 1930, Wiesdorf and the neighboring municipalities merged to form a new town. They named it Leverkusen because of the factory's importance, among other things, for the community's growth. Thus, the club now bore the name of its city. Through this period, and into the 1930s, SV Bayer 04 Leverkusen played third and fourth division football. That was also the year that the club wore the "
Bayer" cross, still visible on their kits, for the first time. That same year, long-time Bayer Leverkusen executive Reiner Calmund became the general manager of the club. The decade and a half following this saw club's greatest successes. After the
German reunification in 1990, Reiner Calmund was quick to sign prominent
East German players
Ulf Kirsten and
Andreas Thom. After they were able to sign
Matthias Sammer, who later became a world footballer, Chancellor
Helmut Kohl vetoed the deal. Calmund also established contacts in
Brazilian football, befriending Juan Figer, one of Brazil's most powerful
player agents. Over the next few years, budding superstars, such as
Jorginho and
Paulo Sérgio, joined the team. The club also signed famous older german successful players, such as
Bernd Schuster, and
Rudi Völler, helping to ensure the team's popularity and growing success. The club won its next major honour in 1993 with a 1–0 win in the
DFB-Pokal final against
Hertha BSC second team (amateur squad) on 12 June 1993. In the following season, in a game in which Schuster scored a 45 m "German Goal of the Year" (a goal which was later also named "Goal of the Decade"). After the club had almost been relegated in 1996 they regularly found themselves among the top three of the league under new coach
Christoph Daum. In the next years they sign players such as
Lúcio,
Emerson,
Zé Roberto and
Michael Ballack. Daum was later fired for a
cocaine scandal that also cost him his ascent to the role of the
Germany national team coach.
"Neverkusen" , three-time Bundesliga top scorer Leverkusen earned a series of four second-place finishes from 1997 to 2002. Most notably, the team had the Bundesliga title within their grasp in 2000 and 2002. In 2000, Leverkusen needed only a draw against
SpVgg Unterhaching to win the title, but an own goal by Michael Ballack helped send the team to a heart-wrenching 2–0 defeat, while
Bayern Munich won the title with a 3–1 victory over
Werder Bremen. Two years later, the club surrendered a five-point lead atop the league table by losing two of its last three matches, while
Borussia Dortmund swept ahead with three consecutive victories in its final matches. The 2002 season has been dubbed the "Treble Horror", as Leverkusen were also beaten 4–2 in the
DFB-Pokal final by
Schalke 04 and lost the
UEFA Champions League final 2–1 to
Real Madrid, which also led to some of the English-language media dubbing them "Neverkusen". Leverkusen was the first team to reach the final of the Champions League without ever having won a national championship. In addition, five members of the Bayer Leverkusen team were also members of the Germany national team which lost the
final of the World Cup of 2002.
Subsequent years in the
Bundesliga in 2012 In the 2002 off-season, the team sold midfielders Michael Ballack and Zé Roberto to Bayern Munich.
Klaus Toppmöller, who had coached the team during its most successful year, was replaced by Thomas Hörster.
Klaus Augenthaler managed the last two games of the season with a win over his previous club,
1. FC Nürnberg. Bayer Leverkusen finished at a third-place finish and a Champions League place the following year. That following season's run in the
Champions League saw the club open its group stage campaign with a 3–0 win against
Real Madrid a result which helped Leverkusen to win the group. Leverkusen, however, was defeated in the first knockout round by eventual champions
Liverpool. The club finished sixth during the
2004–05 season to qualify for the
next season's UEFA Cup. Early in 2005, Augenthaler was fired as manager after the club got off to its worst recorded Bundesliga start in over 20 years, with only one win in its first four league matches and a 0–1 home loss to
CSKA Sofia in the first leg of its UEFA Cup match-up. Former Germany national team manager Rudi Völler, who had been named sporting director prior to the season, took charge of five matches as
caretaker manager.
Michael Skibbe, who was Völler's assistant coach with the national team, was named as his successor in October 2005. The
2008–09 season got off to a great start for Bayer Leverkusen under new manager
Bruno Labbadia, who the club had acquired from 2. Bundesliga club
SpVgg Greuther Fürth. As the season progressed, however, the team secured no wins against top clubs in the Bundesliga. However, Leverkusen reached the
DFB-Pokal final on 30 May 2009 in
Berlin, but lost the game 0–1 to Werder Bremen. Leverkusen finished the season in ninth place in the Bundesliga table and Labbadia moved to
Hamburger SV in June 2009. Shortly thereafter, Leverkusen presented
Jupp Heynckes, who had previously managed Bayern Munich after
Jürgen Klinsmann's departure, as its new manager. In the
2010–11 season, Bayer Leverkusen finished as runner-up, thus qualifying for the
Champions League for the first time since
2005. However, Heynckes decided not to extend his contract and left Bayer Leverkusen in the 2011 close season to take over at Bayern Munich for a third time. In the
2012–13 and
2015–16 seasons, Leverkusen finished third with coach
Sami Hyypiä and
Roger Schmidt respectively, but were knocked out in the round of 16 of the Champions League the following season both times. In the
2019–20 UEFA Europa League, Leverkusen reached the quarter-finals for the first time since
2008, but were ultimately knocked out by
Inter Milan in a 2–1 loss.
Xabi Alonso era (2022–2025) From Neverkusen to "Neverlusen": unbeaten run (2023–24) In October 2022, with the club in the relegation zone, Leverkusen appointed
Xabi Alonso as head coach in his first senior managerial role; he went on to guide the team to safety and a sixth-placed finish. In
2023–24, Alonso's first full season in charge, Leverkusen achieved significant domestic and European milestones, bolstered by effective squad building and strategic signings including
Switzerland captain
Granit Xhaka,
Victor Boniface,
Jonas Hofmann,
Alejandro Grimaldo, and
Matej Kovar. By early 2024, they had set a new club record for the longest unbeaten start to a season followed by breaking the Bundesliga record (formerly held by
Hamburger SV since the 1982–83 season) for the longest unbeaten run by a club in all competitions with 26 games unbeaten followed by breaking the European record of the European "top 5 leagues" (
Bundesliga,
Premier League,
Primera División,
Ligue 1,
Serie A) set by
Juventus in 2011 and 2012 of 43 cross-competitive compulsory games in a row without defeat. On 14 April 2024, Leverkusen were crowned Bundesliga champions for the first time ever after beating
Werder Bremen 5–0, ending
Bayern Munich's run of 11 successive league titles. This was the club's first trophy since winning the
1992–93 DFB-Pokal. On 9 May 2024, Leverkusen set a new record for
the longest run of matches without a loss in European football history (since the introduction of UEFA club competitions) following a 2–2 draw against
Roma in the Europa League; they broke the previous record of 48 set by
Benfica between 1963 and 1965. Leverkusen then finished the league season unbeaten, the first club in the Bundesliga to do so. Their unbeaten streak ended in their 52nd game of the season with a hat trick by
Ademola Lookman giving them a 3–0 loss to
Atalanta in the
Europa League final. They won the
2024 DFB-Pokal final by beating
1. FC Kaiserslautern to win the domestic
double.
Downfall and unbeaten away game record (2024–25) At the start of the
new season on 17 August 2024, the team won the
DFL-Supercup for the first time ever beating
VfB Stuttgart after penalties. However, their domestic unbeaten streak ended on 31 August 2024 after a 3–2 home defeat to
RB Leipzig. This led to a less successful season for Leverkusen as the club relinquished the
Bundesliga title back to Bayern Munich who also beat them 5–0 on aggregate in the round of 16 of the
Champions League. Leverkusen also lost in the semi-finals of the
DFB-Pokal to third-tier side
Arminia Bielefeld leaving them with the DFL-Supercup as their only trophy of the season. Xabi Alonso departed the club at the end of the season to replace
Carlo Ancelotti as manager of
Real Madrid, but his record of 34 unbeaten away Bundesliga matches still stands as of 2026
Post-Alonso era (2025–present) On 26 May 2025, Leverkusen announced former
Manchester United and
Ajax manager
Erik ten Hag would replace Alonso as head coach, with Ten Hag starting his job on 1 July 2025. Later that year, on 1 September, Ten Hag was sacked after only two league matches. Kasper Hjulmand was named as his replacement on 8 September 2025. On 1 November 2025, their unbeaten away run of 37 Bundesliga matches ended after a 3-0 away defeat to Bayern Munich ==Logo history==